TMNT (Vol. 1) #31

In a city, crows gather outside a window. Inside, a man in samurai armor is delivered a
cup of hot tea by a masked geisha. The
samurai says that the cup has served countless generations of Oroku. Sipping his tea and then smashing the cup,
the samurai says that the world is a torrent of change, resolving into sorrow, and it is a lesson he shall now teach his old enemy.

In a basement somewhere, a mutant rat, Splinter, is hit by a
spiritual attack. Realizing that his
foe, Oroku Saki, has finally begun to strike, Splinter gathers the ingredients
necessary to meet the threat. Splinter
confronts Saki on the astral plane, but Saki defeats him handily. Realizing that he is too old and weak to
battle his nemesis alone, Splinter swallows four ancient talismans
(representing earth, fire, air and water) and performs a mystic ritual.

Sensing Splinter’s workings, Oroku Saki (now known as the
Shredder) is not disturbed. He rallies
his Foot Soldiers and tells them that through harmony and patience, they shall
destroy their enemies in battle.

Down in the basement, Splinter's four “sons” awaken. They are four large, anthropomorphic turtles. Splinter rallies them to their feet, as they
shall help him restore his honor.

Several crows fly from the city to the snow-covered
forests on the outskirts. Splinter leads
his sons through the snow, telling them that death only visits once. Entering a clearing, they are ambushed by
dozens of Foot Soldiers lurking in the snow.
As Shredder barks orders from a vantage point, the Foot Soldiers
strike. The Turtles hold their own in
battle, slaying many of the Foot Soldiers.
Eventually, one of them has their right hand sliced off. Feeling his son’s pain, Splinter vomits up
the talismans. He then orders his sons
to save the hand and enter into retreat.
Shredder allows his enemies to leave, being satisfied with his victory
over them.

Running through the forest, Splinter tells his sons to be
quick with their fallen brother, as they are running out of time to not only
save his hand, but his life, too.

Having observed the battle, a crow swoops down and lands
next to one of the disgorged talismans, covered in Splinter’s blood.

*When Splinter enters the astral plane to face Oroku
Saki, he says “nin” (忍) which is Japanese for “endurance” and “concealment” in
certain conjugations, as well as the first character in the word “ninja” (忍者).

Review:

The “guest era” of TMNT Vol. 1 is pretty polarizing
amongst fans. It wasn’t very
well-received at the time it happened, as it delayed the actual narrative of
TMNT Vol. 1 for YEARS. When Eastman and
Laird finally resumed “canon” stories in TMNT (Vol. 1) #45, they had to write
up an editorial note assuring readers that the “guest era” was over for good.

Looking back, it was a very interesting experiment that I
can appreciate on principle. For years,
indie creators were invited to write stories (sometimes one-shots, sometimes
arcs) featuring completely new renditions of the Turtles. The idea was to give readers variety in both
art and storytelling whilst still maintaining familiarity in terms of
characters.

That’s what was intended.
What we GOT was another matter entirely.

The “guest era” was practically consumed by surreal,
zany, wacky comedy stories by screwball creators and artists. Instead of “variety” we got Mark Martin or
Hedden & McWeeney taking the Turtles on three-issue-long treks through the
tediousness of “random” storytelling.
And still more were one-shot “surrealist comedy” bits of the same
vibe. If you’re actually attempting a #1
through #62 read-through of TMNT Vol. 1, then the “guest era” amounts to little
more than an exercise in monotonous agony.
I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for the fans buying the
book on a monthly basis back in the 80s and early 90s when this was going
on. “Is it over, yet?” “Nope, it’s Hedden & McWeeney again”. “Sigh.”

But while so much of the “guest era” was unbearable
screwball comedy nonsense, there were some diamonds amongst the coal. Rick Veitch’s contributions were worth
keeping, but they were written to fit into the continuity of the ongoing Mirage
series. Likewise, so were many of the
better issues, like “Halls of Lost Legends”, “Sons of the Silent Age” and “Dreams of Stone”. Great stories, but they
didn’t operate under the idea of a creator taking the Turtles away from
established continuity and recreating them on their own. THAT stuff was almost strictly reserved for
the stupid comedy relief issues and arcs.

Then in step Michael Zulli and Steve Murphy with their
“Souls Winter” trilogy. Together, they
proved to be the only creative minds invited to participate in the “guest era”
who truly got what the exercise was all about.
Reinventing the series from the ground up, we get a fresh look at Splinter,
Shredder, the Foot Clan and the Ninja Turtles under a lens of mysticism and
spirituality as opposed to science fiction and contrived happenstance.

Here, the Turtles are created by Splinter using his own
blood and his own soul. They are truly
his sons; his creations. While his
motivation for birthing them might be a little questionable, it’s no worse than
his motivations in the main Mirage continuity (in both takes, he only raises
them for the purpose of killing the Shredder; at least here he’s more honest
about it).

Shredder, meanwhile, is much the same, though far more in
touch with spiritual and psychic warfare than the strictly physical combatant he was in the Mirage continuity. Often,
the dichotomy between Splinter and Shredder is given that Shredder believes more in
the might of hand-to-hand combat and strength, while Splinter is more a student of
philosophy and spiritualism. Murphy wisely chooses to cast
the Shredder as something closer to Splinter’s darker half than his polar
opposite, as both are masters of astral projection and psychic warfare. It creates a more menacing Shredder, as the
villain can now fight Splinter on both fronts (and over the course of this
issue, defeats him on both fronts).

Murphy is subtle with his symbolism and his exposition in
this issue. This is the side of Murphy
that I like to see, when he gives the audience enough credit to read into the
message of his work, rather than having his work read its message to the audience
out loud. Sadly, you just don’t see
enough of this sort of Stephen Murphy, as he mostly opts to go the soapbox
route in his stories. Regardless, he
crafts a dark and brutal new origin for the Turtles that omits the campy
superhero artifacts of the Eastman and Laird version (all the Turtles use
katana, for instance, and none wear silly robber masks). His use of the crows to symbolize the
hovering presence of death, always following you and gradually drawing nearer,
was a great touch of menace. Of course,
we’ll be meeting Death in a much less veiled form in the subsequent
installments of the trilogy.

And what’s to be said about Michael Zulli’s art other
than a righteous “Hell yeah”…?

The guy can DRAW and his renderings not only of the main
cast, but of the grimy sewer depths, the dreary city skyline, the ominous
winter forests and the menacing crows prove him to be one of the most
well-rounded artists you will ever encounter.
The Puma Blues, while a bit of a dense read, is a great title if all you’re
interested in is beautiful black and white artwork. Zulli’s way of capturing nature is
practically unparalleled. He can put so
much emotion into the face of an animal without cartoonishly
anthropomorphisizing it. His Turtles
have scaly, bumpy skin and sharp, pronounced beaks which make them look
ferocious from a distance, but close-ups show a warmth and wisdom in their eyes
that’s really hard to describe.

“Souls Winter” is something very special. While some good stories came out of TMNT Vol.
1’s “guest era”, I honestly think that Murphy and Zulli’s trilogy was the only
one to utilize the freedom to its fullest potential. If you plan on skipping the “guest era” in
your collections, just make sure you don’t skip these.

5 comments:

I just finished up my #1-#62 readthrough and I have to agree the guest era was a slog. It's a mixed bag -- not even all the "canon" stuff is good, and most of the non-canon stuff isn't. But Soul's Winter was something special that I'd been hearing about and looking forward to reading for a long time.

What I like is that it really does seem to take Splinter to task and literalize his motivations of raising the turtles just to fight Shredder. It focuses on the core of the Splinter vs. Shredder story and actually ends up making Shredder seem much more sympathetic and nuanced than usual. Meanwhile, with the identical, nearly personalityless Turtles, you have a reflection of the anonymous Foot Clan.

It's certainly among the best issues of the guest era, that's for sure.

I was one of those readers back then. I was a teen with no money so I didn't buy them. But lucky for me I had a friend who faithfully bought every issue trying to maintain a complete run. He just kept buying them, and we kept hoping that things would go back to normal. Nope. We did not know what Peter and Kevin were doing. Finally he went away to college so that was it for me and TMNT. I did pick up a bunch from later on in the run at a dollar store in the mid nineties hoping for they might be back to business as usual of the early days, but nope, worse than ever. Really loved those early ones though, and the cool mini stories in the back of the reprints.

I'm confused about something... I've never read this story (though I always found the idea of it fascinating), but in the synopsis for the issue on miragelicensing.com says they were hibernating. Bit if they're just being created, how are they in hibernation? I really need to just go ahead and get this story.

There's nothing in the dialogue of the issue-itself to state that they're in hibernation. Splinter just swallows the talismans and the Turtles appear in a flash of light and smoke. The way he wakes them up from a groggy sleep and they immediately accept him as their father would seem to indicate a form of hibernation and past experience with him, but nothing is outright stated in the story.

It could be said in one of the other issues in the arc, but I'll have to cross that bridge when I get there.

When writing my summaries, I only include the information given in the issue-itself, or at least I try to.